Everything Tim Ferriss has recommended in 5-Bullet Friday — 2,095 books, articles, quotes, films, products and more, gathered from 480 issues since 2015. Browse by category, sort by what the community values or how often Tim has returned to it, and spend your 25 votes on what matters most to you. Each item's note is quoted from Tim's own words in the newsletter.
Wispr Flow. From the homepage: “Effortless voice dictation in every application: 3x faster than typing, AI commands and auto-edits.” This came highly recommended by two friends, so I decided to give it a shot. Thus far, it’s far superior to other voice dictation that I’ve tried. For real prose, I continue to believe that deep thinking is the limiter and not any word-per-minute typing rate, but this is a great tool for banging out quick emails and messages.— Tim Ferriss
Auren. “Auren and Seren are a new type of entity with superhuman emotional intelligence, memory, and therapeutic capability.” My team has been testing this app, and they find it helpful with a warning that the Seren personality can be challenging and confrontational. Hat tip to Ben Thompson from Stratechery who found the app impressive and its use as a life coach helpful. Pro tip: To preserve your privacy, after downloading the app on iOS, sign up with Apple and hide your name and email address.— Tim Ferriss
AwardTool. Hat tip to Chris Hutchins of All the Hacks for this recommendation. Description: “Discover the best award flight availability to maximize your points and miles.” Have random points scattered around various places that you don’t know how to use? This might help.— Tim Ferriss
PlasticList — Data on plastic chemicals in food. A disparate group of researchers united by a common interest (to find and share how many plastic chemicals are found in our food) compiled this remarkable list. From the website: We detected plastic chemicals in 86% of the foods we tested. At least one of the 18 chemicals was found in every baby food, prenatal supplement, human breast milk, yogurt, and ice cream product that we tested, to name only a few categories. We also found plastic chemicals in all the products we tested from Starbucks, Gerber, Chobani, Straus, Celsius, Blue Bottle, RXBAR,— Tim Ferriss
TheTrueSize.com. This is mind-blowing. Try taking the United States, or your own country, and moving it around, especially towards the poles. Play with it for a minute and you’ll get it. From the description: “Every map projection introduces distortion, and each has its own set of problems. One of the most common criticisms of the Mercator map is that it exaggerates the size of countries nearer the poles (US, Russia, Europe), while downplaying the size of those near the equator (the African Continent). … This app was created by James Talmage and Damon Maneice. It was inspired by an episode of — Tim Ferriss
NotebookLM. I know everyone is sick of hearing about AI, but if you haven’t heard this sample podcast, which was generated from a simple article, it will blow your mind. Those are not real humans. NotebookLM is an AI-powered research and writing assistant that works best with the sources you upload. Thanks to Mark Frauenfelder, who recommended this in Recomendo as an “Easy AI Tool for Document Analysis”: Google has released an experimental AI called NotebookLM that allows you to upload PDF and text files for processing. The AI then generates various outputs such as FAQs, study guides, and brie— Tim Ferriss
Consensus: AI Search Engine for Research. Thanks to Richard Reis of Most Recommended Books for the tip, which was a response to this post of mine about science-focused AI tools. Here’s the synopsis, pun intended: “Consensus is an academic search engine, powered by AI, but grounded in scientific research. We use language models (LLMs) and purpose-built search technology (Vector search) to surface the most relevant papers. We synthesize both topic-level and paper-level insights. Everything is connected to real research papers.”— Tim Ferriss
ChatGPT on your desktop. Function: “Chat about email, screenshots, files, and anything on your screen.” The main reason I installed it was to create a keyboard shortcut, much like you might use Spotlight on Mac: “Option + Space opens ChatGPT from any screen on your desktop.” This allows me to quickly query ChatGPT for anything. It’s a lot faster than going to a separate new tab for Google. Separately, I will be testing Runway’s Gen-3 Alpha Text-to-Video. Watch their mind-blowing two-minute video here. You might want to consider keeping, per Ethan Mollick’s suggestion, an AI “impossibility list— Tim Ferriss
Momentum Dash. You can see my screen at this link and the message I had for myself when I was working on Tools of Titans back in 2016. Momentum Dash is outstanding, but you’ll likely end up paying for it. My close friend found a free alternative with basic functionality, and it gets the bare-bones job done: New Tab Random Quote.— Tim Ferriss
Matter. I’ve been looking for a lightweight text2voice solution for listening to articles, blog posts, essays, etc., and I just started experimenting with Matter. It’s remarkably simple, and there are a handful of voices to choose from. Here’s the official description: “Matter pulls everything you want to read into one beautiful place. With powerful tools, curation, seamless audio and more, we’re building a reader for today’s internet.” It was originally put on my radar by M.G. Siegler, who is an investor. Since I’m old-school and also still use Evernote, if anyone has an Evernote-native solut— Tim Ferriss
COCKPUNCH 3D Character Files! I am excited to make the 3D files from the project available to you all in Blender format. These are rotatable and 3D printable (with some tweaking), and there is a lot you can do with them. Feel free to create photo shoots, rig them, and otherwise go nuts. I can’t wait to see what you come up with! Tag me at @tferriss or @cockpunch on Twitter and share your creations and comments. My team will be retweeting some of our favorites.— Tim Ferriss
Introducing Wonder Studio. This tech could have a huge impact on leveling the moviemaking playing field. Advisors and investors include Steven Spielberg and Founders Fund, and the company was co-founded by Nikola Todorovic and Tye Sheridan. From the demo on YouTube: “An AI tool that automatically animates, lights, and composes CG characters into a live-action scene. No complicated 3D software, no expensive production hardware—all you need is a camera.” Here is a two-minute video taste of the tech.— Tim Ferriss
Airalo. What to do for cellular data when traveling overseas? For a while, my answer was the app GigSky, but on a recent trip abroad, I had all sorts of problems, so I posted a plea for help on social media. Special thanks to Noah Kagan (@noahkagan) and everyone else who responded to my query in this Twitter thread. Airalo was extremely easy to use and did the trick. To avoid expensive roaming bills when traveling abroad and using data, you can install the Airalo app (iOS, Android) and buy a local eSIM. In minutes, you will have data at an affordable price. The app might be easiest, but I pers— Tim Ferriss
Finally started playing with Procreate. This is my first attempt at a quick, original piece. My old friend Bacchus was kind enough to pose. I still have a LOT to learn, and I’m awkward with the tools, but it makes me really happy to start sketching again. Anyone have any favorite video tutorials for Procreate out there? If so, please do let me know in the comments here.— Tim Ferriss
Want an incredible rotating view of the QL or any other muscle you can imagine? Check out the Essential Anatomy 5 app for iOS and Android (note: some reviewers report the app crashing on Android). Monster drummer Dave Elitch shared this with me, and I’ve been nerding out ever since. For a taste of its capabilities, check out this short YouTube tutorial.— Tim Ferriss
GigSky. This app is a game-changer, and huge thanks to Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt) for saving my ass abroad with the recommendation. It allows you to use cellular data nearly anywhere in the world without changing your domestic plan (Verizon, AT&T, etc.) in any way. >From their website: “The GigSky app lets you grab a single data plan where and when you want – at home or in any of our 190+ destinations. Select a plan from the app, download an eSIM, and you’ll connect on the spot, no physical SIM card required.” My first trial run of this app/eSIM was with my iPhone in Chile, and it came throug— Tim Ferriss
Food Choice Test. This is somewhat ridiculous, but that’s part of what makes it fun. Description: “Food has always been tied to class. Silvia Bellezza and Jonah Berger at the University of Pennsylvania now believe they have a way to identify a person’s social class based on how they feel about certain foods. The results are not always what you would expect. What do your food choices say about your social class? For each of the following dishes, indicate your feelings toward it below.” How did I do? I ended up at 85.71% lower middle class. Fuck, yeah, ’merica! I win!— Tim Ferriss
Voice Isolation mode. Thank you to HV for introducing me to this. Description: “When you want your voice to be heard clearly in a FaceTime call and other sounds filtered out, you can turn on Voice Isolation mode. Voice Isolation mode prioritizes your voice in a FaceTime call and blocks out the ambient noise. During a FaceTime call, open Control Center, tap Mic Mode, then select Voice Isolation.” Here’s how to try it out.— Tim Ferriss
Downloading Google Maps areas for offline usage. For offline city exploration, whether wandering without a data plan or simply taking a break from online addiction, this is a simple approach that works. Be forewarned that it will only give you driving directions, so you’ll need to guesstimate the best walking routes. Here’s how to test it out.— Tim Ferriss
WeCroak (iOS, Android). Description: “The WeCroak app is inspired by a Bhutanese folk saying: to be a happy person, one must contemplate death five times daily.” This app sends you five prompts per day to stop and think about death, each complete with a related quote. I love how social sharing is disabled. Thank you to Josh T. and Matt M. for the recommendation.— Tim Ferriss
Screenplayed: Comparing Movies to Screenplays (@screenplayed). This is the art of explaining art. Screenplayed uses a split screen to help you watch scenes of movies while simultaneously reading along in the final script. To get a quick taste, check out this example from Uncut Gems. Many thanks to Jordan B. for introducing me to this.— Tim Ferriss
Amphetamine on the Mac App Store. I love my newest MacBook, but I sometimes run into a problem: no matter how I fuss with settings (System Preferences), my display will inexplicably sleep and stop things like Dropbox from syncing. It’s a real hassle, especially when uploading large audio files. My brother ran into a similar problem when running programs that take hours to execute, and he found an app called Caffeine that fixed the problem. To my dismay, Caffeine had been discontinued by the developer, but I found a similar app to fill the void: Amphetamine! Hilarious. The app has also worked l— Tim Ferriss
Porta Sophia. “Porta Sophia, meaning doorway to wisdom, is a prior art library for patent reviewers around the world to find relevant prior art in the field of psychedelics. The library provides convenient access, via a simple search tool, to scientific literature, previous patents, historical archives, online forums and more. Key content from the public domain focuses on medical applications, means of production, drug combinations and various drug formulations of multiple psychedelic compounds. Due to historical and cultural aspects of psychedelics, prior art can be difficult or inconvenient — Tim Ferriss
Google Contacts (contacts.google.com). Just type contacts.google.com into your browser URL bar, and you’ll see something I’d never accessed until this week. Why this week? Because I’m retiring a bunch of email addresses, and I wanted to know whom I’ve emailed most often from the inboxes that are headed to the garbage bin. This feature—hidden in plain sight—makes it super simple, and you can export your list of VIPs. One important note: “Frequently contacted” appears to include people who email you as well, so it requires some minor cleanup to remove newsletters and so on.— Tim Ferriss
Zero Fasting App. Kevin Rose (@KevinRose) originally created Zero in 2016, and it is now the most popular fasting app in the world. It has millions of downloads and 4.9 out of 5 stars on the Apple App Store with 268,000+ ratings. Dr. Peter Attia (@PeterAttiaMD), one of my go-to doctors for anything performance- or longevity-related, is co-founder and chief medical officer. He is the person I call for fasting advice, and now Zero gives access to that same advice. For a short sample Q&A on fasting with Peter, click here. They recently released Zero Plus, an upgrade for power users that I’m now u— Tim Ferriss
Scannable. During quarantine and social distancing, my kitchen table has become my office. Last week, it was covered in notes, to-do lists, bills, and various scraps of paper. Clutter causes me undue stress, and, for me, a clear desk is often a clear mind, so I used Scannable to scan it all. It was a glorious little win. Kevin Rose (@KevinRose) first recommended Scannable to me. It quickly scans documents while cleaning up the pic, removing shadows, etc., and generally making it easier to read. Once scanned, you can email a PDF to yourself or save the scan to Evernote.— Tim Ferriss
Archive.today or Archive.is (identical). Here’s the official description: “Archive.today is a time capsule for web pages! It takes a ‘snapshot’ of a webpage that will always be online even if the original page disappears. It saves a text and a graphical copy of the page for better accuracy and provides a short and reliable link to an unalterable record of any web page.” Normally, I use the Evernote web clipper for grabbing web content, and many friends use Pocket, but Archive.is has some unique features and benefits worth exploring…— Tim Ferriss
PromptSmart Pro: Mobile Teleprompter App. I was introduced to this app last week while recording video for podcast interviews in Austin. As the name suggests, it’s a teleprompter app for your phone or tablet. I used it for recording intros/bios for guests while looking directly toward the camera. That was a first for me and a quantum leap in video quality. Here’s how it works: Instead of awkwardly reading from a piece of paper, or futilely trying to memorize a page of text, I was looking at an iPad the videographer was holding right underneath the camera, which made it appear as if I were look— Tim Ferriss
BDSM Test: What kind of sexual deviant are you? My girlfriend somehow found this (I know where you live, DP) and sent it to me. We had a hilarious and unexpectedly productive time comparing our results. Here’s the description: “The BDSM Test can tell you what parts of BDSM and kink you are into. It’s a fun and an educational experience for both inexperienced and experienced kinksters.” Note to anyone reading this in an office: the test is not safe for work. And if you need me to tell you that after the heading, you are too hungover to make any important decisions. Take a nap and thank me later— Tim Ferriss
Loom. I’ve tried lots of software for capturing videos of actions on my computer screen. Whether sharing feedback on designs, explaining a tech bug, teaching computer-based skills to employees, having them get me up to speed on 101 skills (e.g., integrating Gmail and Asana), or otherwise, I find videos powerfully clear and invaluable. Historically, that’s involved recording a video, waiting 5–30 minutes for it to render, uploading to a shared folder, waiting another 10–30 minutes, and then sharing a link. Loom creates a shareable link nearly instantaneously, which you can also password protect— Tim Ferriss
Google Lens. The 3x Olympic medalist and irritatingly handsome Matt Targett recommended that I check out Google Lens as a tool for transcribing text from physical to digital (e.g., a photo of a book page automagically turns into copy-and-pastable text). I had no idea this app existed (for iOS, the Lens feature is easily found within the Google app), and it turns out that Google Lens does A LOT: “Search what you see with your camera, copy and translate text, find similar apparel, identify plants and animals, scan QR codes and more.” My team and I have played with real-time translation (pointing— Tim Ferriss
The Feather Atlas. This was recommended to me on Twitter by Professor Jonathan Eisen, and it helped me (with much assistance from my dear followers) to identify the white-winged dove tail feather and go down an ornithological rabbit hole.— Tim Ferriss
Spectrogram Pro. A vocal teacher adept at overtone singing showed me this tool, and it’s my first introduction to visual representation of sound outside of simple waveforms. I’ve been making more progress with singing since being introduced to this, as I now have another “peg” for feedback: visual signatures. Are there better tools for this? Please let me know on Twitter (@tferriss), if so.— Tim Ferriss
Quickposes. This is an online tool for practicing gesture drawing, among other things. I’ve been using the “Timed practice” function, nude/semi-nude, at 60 seconds per image. The goal is to quickly sketch the gist of an image with proportion and placement. Be forewarned: some options on the website are definitely NSFW.— Tim Ferriss
DF “Distraction Free” Tube. Noise and distraction online are endless. It’s nice to have tools to clean up the mess a bit. I learned about DF Tube from uber-entrepreneur/investor Caterina Fake’s blog. Here is her description: “This is a chrome plugin that eliminates all the cruft around a YouTube video. For the past few months I’ve been trying to force YouTube to show me palatable content on my sidebar, but no matter how much crap I reject as “Not Interested” more crap appears. Since the font of crap is inexhaustible, I searched for a YouTube cleanup plugin. DF Tube–Distraction Free Tube–is so — Tim Ferriss
Coda. Specifically, I’m playing with new versions of the Dreamlining and Fear-setting exercises using their platform. I have no stake in the company but find it interesting. Perhaps, like Stripe, it will reinvigorate a space full of incumbents?— Tim Ferriss
Readwise.io. This was introduced to me by my close buddy, Mike, who described it via text: “Basically you integrate with Amazon [Kindle], and it sends you a digest every day of 5 to 15 of your past highlights from a random selection of books. [...] It also integrates with Instapaper and Highly so you can grab text from the web. Nice and simple.” As the homepage asks: “Highlighting is great, but what's the point if you're never going to see any of those highlights again?”— Tim Ferriss
The new Sam Harris Waking Up meditation app. I absolutely love this app and have recommended it to nearly all of my closest friends. I was a beta tester for months and provided feedback, but I have no stake in it whatsoever. What makes it different? This app offers a guided meditation *progression* that builds multiple skills as you move from one class to the next. It’s a logical sequence instead of a collection of ad-hoc readings. Sam has succeeded at producing a world-class program for mind training, IMHO.— Tim Ferriss
Readlang. This was recommended to me by a fellow language-learning nut. Here’s the description: “Read your favorite webpages, translate the words you don't know, and we'll generate flashcards to help you remember.” It’s worth the effort to test out as a browser extension. For more language-learning tools, click here.— Tim Ferriss
I have been enjoying the Brave browser, which, simply put, is a browser with “your interests at heart.” The main person behind it is Brendan Eich (@BrendanEich), the creator of the JavaScript programming language. Here is the official short pitch as to why you should consider switching to Brave: “Browse faster by blocking ads and trackers that violate your privacy and cost you time and money.” Also from the website: “The ‘private’ or ‘incognito’ browsing mode that others offer is not truly private. Those tabs mostly stop other people that use your device from seeing where you’ve been. Brave’s — Tim Ferriss
AllTrails. This has been a game changer for finding great trails all over the country and quickly filtering for “dog friendly” and other criteria that matter to me.— Tim Ferriss
Vivino -- I have seen wine apps before, but I casually dismissed them, as I don’t buy *that* much wine. I might have 3-5 bottles at home at any given time, but there’s certainly no cellar. Last week, John Price, CEO of Vast, explained to me why he uses Vivino. Of course, you can take a picture of any wine label, or the wines as they appear on a menu, see both critic and user reviews, and easily buy online… but that’s not what caught my interest. I don’t care about frictionless purchasing of wine, but I *do* love the ability to make easier, better decisions at restaurants. This is where John sh— Tim Ferriss
Cuphead video game. I don’t play video games much, mostly because I’ve been addicted before. Nonetheless, my friend’s son and I recently ended up playing Cuphead, which blew my mind. I have a soft spot for old animation like ancient Mickey Mouse and Looney Tunes, and the graphics of this game are precisely modeled after that look. Check out this trailer or this 8-minute example. Gotta say: awesome idea. Kudos to the team who created this. Beautiful work.— Tim Ferriss
The OneTab extension. This browser extension collapses a messy browser full of 20+ tabs into one tab with a bulleted list of your previous tabs! This not only saves your sanity; it also helps conserve computer memory (they claim up to 95%), helping to prevent Chrome, Firefox, etc. from freezing your whole damn computer.— Tim Ferriss
The Death Clock, a Chrome extension for your browser. Every time you open a new tab, it displays the number of days, hours, and minutes left in your life, roughly calculated based on average lifespans. The line “Make them count!” appears underneath. My usual go-to extension for new tabs is Momentum, but Thanksgiving seemed like a good time to remember mortality and cut down on distractions.— Tim Ferriss
SocialRank. This cool tool was recommended to me by a number of people on Twitter for exporting my followers and looking at analytics, sorting by “most followed,” etc. For getting a deeper look at my tribe on Twitter and my friends on Instagram, it’s the most elegant service that I’ve found.— Tim Ferriss
Week Calendar (Week Cal) app. This app was introduced to me by Naval Ravikant’s wonderful wife, Krystle. At least on an iPhone, it allows a smarter and easier at-a-glance view of your weekly and monthly calendar. Specifically, click on “Views” in the bottom navigation bar and choose “Mini Month.” It’s the fastest way I’ve found to get the gist of your upcoming schedule.— Tim Ferriss